Judgment Based On Appearance Rather Than Personality And Behavior

In our world today, many people suffer hatred over appearance and face prejudices mainly stereotyping. These troubles are sometimes extended to body shaming, sexism and many more. This has been normalized in society making it hard to distinguish between humor and mockery. The difference between humour that is satire and humour that is not. The power of media has influenced individual's minds into making quick and hasty judgments that usually stem from preconceived stereotypes. Thus, the term ‘first impressions’ has become solely based on physical appearance.

These physical traits trigger positive and negative criticism. This essay will discuss how judgments are not made on personality and behavior but rather on physical body appearance and this is because of the power of media and hegemony. In western media, Muslims and Arabs are constantly associated with the term “terrorists” and are always portrayed as radicalized and deranged individuals who enjoy bombing sites and harming others. However, this is far from the truth and this sad depiction has caused people to judge me. My appearance is very middle eastern with a thick and dark beard with a unibrow, and slightly tanned-skin. I arrived at Canada in the beginning of high school and definitely faced many struggles as I was new to this culture. My appearance and accent made me feel even more alienated. Kids in school used to continually joke about me by calling me a “terrorist” or asking me if I have a “bomb” in my bag.

Since English was not one of my strengths, it was hard for me to counter what they say because I was scared to mess up. Although these were just jokes, this form of mockery humor weakened my confidence and caused me to have low self-esteem. Due to the low Arab population in my school and my low confidence, I was forced to accept it. The word “terrorist” was no longer just mockery humor but became a haunting reminder that I was different and alienated me even more. Toronto is a culturally diverse city and thus I assumed that if I speak up I could end all these stereotypes against me, but I found that my opinion was so small that it became useless overshadowed by the majority’s opinion on me. The streets were not so different. There was constant staring based on the difference of my appearance. This caused me to feel highly uncomfortable and very secluded. My beard and unibrow were defined as an ‘ugly and unattractive’ characteristic.

Media defined the presence of beards and unibrows as grotesque and thus influenced the concept of beauty and attractiveness in people’s minds. Being labelled as unattractive in society was very discouraging especially to a growing teenager as myself. In addition, social media has become a source of manipulation. Social media has become a place of validation of people’s appearances. The number of likes on an Instagram picture determines how ‘liked’ and ‘attractive’ you are. This ties with Antonio Gramsci’s theory of Hegemony where the all the physically attractive men get all the girls or people tolerating status of affairs. It was especially painful to live under the darkness, knowing that people are unattracted by my looks and just make jokes out of my appearance. This ultimately led me to engage in sports. I decided to join the basketball team to show my friends a different side of me, to meet new people and build my confidence. Joining the team proved to be hard as I discovered that I was one of the shortest, weakest and least talented athlete on the team. I was constantly told that I was too ‘weak’ and ‘small’. This again ties to the notion of judging my capability and skills based on my appearance. Some people even encouraged me to quite.

A new trait was being passed around in the team that I looked like a goat. This severely lowered my confidence as it seemed I was getting comments from every direction. I could not focus on my studies because of the low self-esteem issues that kept haunting me and filling up my brain. In my own eyes, I thought that power was total which goes against Michael Foucault’s theory about power is never total and there is some sort of resistance from the society. That I was socially constructed as a student to make fun because of the way I acted and how I appeared in people’s eyes. I felt that I was the one being oppressed due to my race/ethnicity. I felt that I was being misjudged and underestimated based on something that I have no control over. I knew I was not a critical thinker, because as a critical thinker you would question the people about the norms to make them realize about what they’re doing wrong. In today’s society, media consists of everything that is around us; from what we watch to what we listen. This includes in televisions, internet to radios, telephones and many more. It has come to a point that humans are heavily dependent on social media. Individuals are constantly checking their phones and rely on them for news, information, scheduling, connecting and many more. Western media has influenced millions of people to believe that people with beards and unibrows are associated to be a Muslim and thus considered a ‘terrorist’.

There is very little diversity portrayed in movies and media. Media depicts ‘attractiveness’ as tall, light-skinned without a beard or unibrow therefore creating a singular story about people with facial hair and about Muslims. Chimamanda Adichie states in her ted talk that stereotypes are based on a single story causing it to be incomplete (socio-cultural perspective reader pg36). Media created a story about my race/ethnicity that became the only story about us. It socially constructed and normalized the stereotypes and judgements that go against my race/ethnicity. Therefore, when these stereotypes come about, the majority agrees with it and they have media as evidence for their judgment. Everyone is exposed to the Dimensions of oppression that are institutional, symbolic, and individualistic said by Patricia Hill Collins. She also states that in society, institutions are structured through a relationship between the dominant and subordinates. My school is an institution that consists of mainly westerners such as the people who work in administration, teaching, and VPs. The brown/middle easterns were the subordinate group in the school as a result it gave the student an impression of how low we are in society. That what they say about us is the right judgment since they are the dominant group. As a subordinate group in the institution our judgement is so weak it becomes ‘irrelevant’ in front of the students.

As for the symbolic dimension of oppression written by Patricia Hill Collins, she says that the characteristics of a masculine are aggressive, strong, leader, intellectual and others. Since I did not possess any of these masculine characteristics, I was considered as a weak, soft, feminine, and unintellectual person because of how my body and face looked. In addition, media portrays that aggressive Muslims/Arabs are seen as dangerous people rather than powerful, thus when I act excited or aggressive students judge me as violent and make jokes like “are you going to blow up?”. Media socially constructed and normalized body shaming, and judgments about physical appearance. Criticizing and judging someone based on how they look became a norm. It is built everyone’s head that it is natural to judge or criticize people who do not ‘fit’ in societies norms. The term ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is no longer relevant. People’s first impression of me was always negative due to my appearance.

Since I did not care about my body or looks it triggered the students to create negative judgments and jokes about me and my culture. In conclusion, media carries all the power in affecting the way we think and judge people. But as Michael Foucault states that power is never total since there is resistance coming from the society. My resistance was too weak, so my final assumption was power is total. My physical appearance triggered stereotypes and negative judgements to flow out of the student’s mouths. What if I stood up for myself without using any aggression? As a society, we must stand up to what the media is portraying and use critical thinking to discover what is right and wrong.